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Thursday, 26 February 2009

...because I'm off to get married! A week on Saturday in (hopefully) sunny Napier in New Zealand, and then a honeymoon in South Africa (combining sun, wine and safari). Luckily I return a couple of days before Salute. I'll be skint, but it will be a great day anyway. I had hoped to post some pics and a short history of the 6th Continental Regiment before I left, but they will have to wait until I return. I am still enjoying playing around with Seth Warner's regiment, but didn't manage to finish it in time. Only 7 more figures to go, though. Here, just for Steve, is a photo of my almost finished Sudan Beja horde. 50-odd figures counting as 6 bases of 10. Back in 4 weeks!

Sunday, 22 February 2009

This is another unit of figures taken from the latest Perry "southern militia" packs, this time with a couple of negroes and uniformed ex-Continentals thrown in. I took the idea of blue faced green coats for the Continentals from this Don Troiani painting of a Virginia militiaman at Cowpens - it's hard to tell if the coat is a tattered uniform coat or just a civilian one. However, there are a couple of regiments which are thought to have had blue faced green coats at some point. One of those was the 10th North Carolina, so this unit nominally represents militia from that state.

I probably have almost enough militia now, although I'd like to add a couple of more "northern state"-looking units; hopefully Perry Miniatures will release some more figures for these at some point. In terms of militia numbers for the southern theatre, looking at the "British Grenadier!" scenario books I see that Guilford Courthouse requires 4 x 16 figure units and 2 x 18 figure units; Cowpens needs 3 x 20; Hobkirk's Hill, 1 x 18; Savannah, 1 unit each of 16, 18 and 24 figures; Spencer's Ordinary 2 x 20; Eutaw Springs, 2 x 12, 1 x 14 and 2 x 16; and Gloucester Point 4 x 20. So about 60 figures will suffice for most engagements. (I've left out Camden because it's an enormous scenario at the 1:10 figure ratio that appears in the first BG scenario book - you need 270 militia figures!). The skin tones on the "men of colour" were painted with the Foundry "Dusky Flesh" palette over a basecoat of Coat D'Arms "Negro". I find the final Foundry colour, "6C", too light on its own, so I mix it with the B colour as the final highlight.

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

Apologies for the lack of posts of late. Running out of command figures necessitated a quick order to the Perries (which arrived within 3 days - phew!) and as a result I find myself with 3 units nearing completion at the same time, said completion delayed by a weekend away and ongoing prep for the big trip to Kiwiland and South Africa. So above is a wip shot of Seth Warner's "Green Mountain Boys" ("GMB"). I'd be interested to know what readers think of the colour scheme. I found the recreated GMB's website last week (see here)and that shows the men in a mix of the green faced red coats that sources refer to and hunting shirts in a variety of greens, mostly very pale greens. These 3 chaps are "test" figures insofar as I wanted to see which look I preferred. As it is, the figures I am painting now are in different shades to these, so the end result is going to be what Whistler might have called "Symphony in Green. It's been good fun though - it's always tempting to paint hunting shirts in browns, beiges and whites; largely because, I suppose, those are readily available colours. But hunting shirts came in all colours, and the colours I am using for the GMB are all "self-mixed".

The GMB aside, I thought I'd use this post to say a few words about how I base figures. This is in reply to a couple of email discussions about the colour of bases. When I first started basing my AWI figures (about 2 months after I started painting them) I wanted a look that was quite "bright", so reflecting my own painting style and conveying the impression that the figures were in American meadows; I thought this would capture a "New World" feel. So the colours I use are these (after covering up the metal bases with Polyfilla and adding Games Wokshop or other grit/stone mix : the base coat is GW "Graveyard Earth"; first highlight is Foundry "Base Sand 10B"; second highlight is Foundry "Boneyard 9C". I then use a variety of Woodland Scenic stuff, mainly "bushes" and "coarse earth", with some flower scatter and then whatever static grass I've picked up at shows. You can buy seasonal grass these days, but as said above I like to have a summer meadow look so mid-green is fine for me.

The pics below show, left to right, "Graveyard Earth", then the first drybrushed highlight and the then second of "Boneyard C".

Friday, 6 February 2009

I painted the 72eme Ligne backwards, so this is the first battalion. Again, it is minus its flag because having bought the correct GMB flag I then lost it. I found it again this evening, so once I've attached it I might post pics of the two battalions together. This will be the last Napoleonic post for a while. I'm enjoying work on more American AWI units, and I think I have benefited from the diversion of Naps. Having decided that I have enough American figures, I have changed my mind and now have plans for another half dozen regiments. This volte face is largely the result o GMB's new issues of American flags. Two of these new units are all but finished now, the 6th Continental Regiment of 1776 and some more militia, and this weekend I will start on Seth Warner's Green Mountain Boys; working out how to paint pale green hunting shirts should be interesting (the regiment will be in a mix of green faced red coats, hunting shirts and civvies).

The 72eme are again a mix of plastic and metal Perry figures. The command base are all metals. The rank and file have more head swaps than the second battalion. I tried different mud effects on these figures - on the greatcoats, for example, I used a lighter brown (Foundry's "Dusky Flesh C") to suggest old, dried mud underneath the newly acquired darker-shaded mud. I'm not sure it works, but it adds a bit of interest I suppose. I have really enjoyed painting these plastic figures. One can only hope that the Perries have plans for lots more.